“I don’t watch the movies I’m in – ever. Sometimes I keep pictures, but that’s it. I used to watch my movies, because I didn’t want to be rude to the people making them, but I stopped a few years ago. I think it’s pretty common among actors. It’s like listening to your own voice, but multiplied by a million.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“Mother Teresa was asked what was the meaning of life, and she said to help other people, and I thought, ‘What a strange thing to say’ – but maybe it’s the right thing to say.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“All of my pleasures are guilty, but that’s just the way I’m wired.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“In acting class, you’re trained to express yourself as much as you can.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I get very homesick, but otherwise it’s a great privilege to get to travel for work.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“People ask me what my hobbies are in interviews, and I always say biking. But all I bike for is to get to rehearsal more quickly.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“As an actor, you try to bring as much of yourself to a part to try and create a feeling of authenticity and emotional truth and resonance.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“When playing a role, I would feel more comfortable, as you’re given a prescribed way of behaving. So, both Facebook and theatre provide contrived settings that provide the illusion of social interaction.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“If you’re acting, then there’s a prescribed way to behave; whereas in life, there’s no prescribed way. So acting feels like a comfortable way to get through the day.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“The scariest people to turn a movie over to are always the people who are drawing up the poster, because that’s the first impression it’s going to make. And very often it’s portraying a very different film from the one the actors actually did.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“When you are in a live-action movie, you have so many more options to express yourself. You can use your body and your gestures and facial expressions. When you are doing an animated movie, you really only have your voice.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I’m not on Page Six, because I don’t have anything salacious happening in my life… unfortunately.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“There’s something strange about theater. My characters consistently demonize elitism, but of course it’s taking place in a theater where only so many people can see it. I’ve been in silly popcorn movies – the kind of thing that as an actor you might feel embarrassed about – but those movies reach many more people.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I am actually going to two therapists right now. I don’t know, I actually feel like therapy has just made me more uncomfortable.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I grew up in Queens and New Jersey. I started doing children’s theater when I was seven to get out of school because I didn’t fit in.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I write plays, and I have a musical that’s starting to get produced now. That’s what I would love to do, but it’s so hard. The only reason people are reading my plays and musicals is because I’m in movies.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“Every character I play has to be the hero of his own story, the way we’re all heroes of our own lives.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“Look, I don’t have a Facebook page because I have little interest in hearing myself talk about myself any further than I already do in interviews or putting any more about myself online than there already is. But if I wasn’t in this position, I’m sure I would use it every day.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“And I’m sure after Facebook it will be the little cameras that we have implanted into the palms of our hands and we’ll be debating whether we should get them, and then we’ll all get them.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“Society will decide after the technology is created what we will and won’t accept.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“The joy of acting for me is to be able to experience emotions in a safe environment. You can’t scream and cry in the street because everybody will look. If you do it on a movie set, you get applauded.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I cried every day of first grade. In class. Which meant I ended up getting comfortable emoting in a place where it wasn’t the norm.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I don’t understand capri pants. They seem like neither here nor there.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I grew up in an apolitical household. I never left the country. When I became an adult, I started traveling and became interested in politics, and I probably talked about things in a silly, ignorant way.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“It’s so nerve-wracking to be on a set. They’re the most stressful place in the world, because you’re making something permanent, and there are so many people relying on you in a lot of ways.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I think it’s my nature to – every time I hear about an award or a nomination, it makes me realize how much I must’ve been losing before, because I was not aware that every major city had these critics’ awards.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“When you’re acting in a movie, you never consider the reception of it. It’s impossible to predict how something will be received. Even if you think it’s the greatest thing in the world, other people might not like it. Or agree with it.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“Acting is kind of difficult to intellectualize – it’s a far more visceral experience. It’s really hard to be able to think about and then employ these kind of esoteric notions of this person’s backstory and try to weave it in somehow. It’s just kind of impossible.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“The frustrating part of being a movie actor is waiting in your trailer to do two takes of a scene you’ve prepared for two months.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I purposefully isolate myself from anything that has to do with any press. I don’t read any press about myself.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I don’t follow sports that much now, but I was a Phoenix Suns fanatic in the early ’90s.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“When you do a play, you have the kind of nightly feeling of accomplishment. But you also have the daily dread of the doing it every night. And because you’re doing the whole thing every day, it’s like climbing up the mountain every single night. With a movie it’s like climbing the mountain very slowly, over months of filming.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I like driving; I don’t drive since I live in New York. I don’t have an opportunity to drive, like, ever.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I had great difficulty in school interacting with others, and I took refuge in the contrived setting of play acting, which is what I still do.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I’m hardly the most notable person in ‘Zombieland.’ The other actors in it are way more famous than I am.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“To criticize Facebook is to criticize the telephone.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“The more people say nice things about me, the more I feel it’s false.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“If you look at the movies that come out, most of them are bad, so it’s not as if achieving some level of success means you get offered better roles, because frankly they don’t seem to exist.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I know some amazing actors who are not mortified every moment of the day, so my feeling is that maybe you don’t have to be a wreck to be good.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“As an actor, if I show up late somewhere or I say something that’s eccentric, it’s totally acceptable – not only that, it’s lauded in some perverse way.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“When cellphones came out, my girlfriend refused to get one for five years, because she thought it would turn her into somebody who couldn’t connect with other people – and, of course, she got a cellphone.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I’ve never had tastes of people my own age. All of my friends when I was 15 were in their 40s. I’m not actually mature, just very self-conscious around people my own age because I feel like I’m supposed to act the same way they act and I don’t know how.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“As an actor, you have to be open to doing things where you look stupid, to be experimental.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I hate watching me. I hate watching me. It just makes me feel awful. I think, ‘I look stupid from that angle. I wish I didn’t let them put that shirt on me.’”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“If you went to Harvard Medical School, chances are you’ll be a doctor at some place. There’s a career trajectory. Acting, there’s nothing. It’s constantly trying to procure jobs – it’s very disconcerting.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I prefer playing characters that are going through turmoil. Most movie characters are just in service to the story.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“When you take on a role, even if the character is somebody that you are dissimilar to, you have to identify with the role and look for an emotional connection even if there is not a biographical one.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I have a job that requires me to be in the public eye in the way that makes me extra careful about sharing information.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I live in New York City, so there’s so much stimulation when you walk outside, it does not require a television in the home.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I meet people who are in movies, and the stuff that they write is terrible, but nobody tells them that because they’re famous. So I worry that my stuff might be like that, too.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“People think, ‘You’re an actor, you can afford clothes,’ but I just try to take the clothes from the movie, which makes the selecting of film projects that much more difficult, because you try to play characters that might wear something you’d want to wear.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I guess the more serious you play something, if the context is funny, then it will be funny and it doesn’t really require you to be necessarily, explicitly humorous, or silly.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I can’t watch myself in interviews. I feel like I look like a wreck. My mom is always calling me and going, ‘Stop fidgeting,’ and it’s like, ‘You have no idea what it’s like, Mom.’”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I don’t have a Facebook page because I have little interest in hearing myself talk about myself any further than I already do in interviews or putting any more about myself online than there already is.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“The movies that are really big, at least in my experience, oftentimes don’t have characters that I feel as personally connected to.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I find people who want to help other people to be the most interesting. I come from a family of teachers, and my friends are teachers, often times in very difficult school situations.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I’m not into music – the only music I like is musical theater, but I have every Ween album.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I grew up in a secular suburban Jewish household where we only observed the religion on very specific times like a funeral or a Bar Mitzvah.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“Everyone’s a geek in some way or other. Everyone’s an outsider.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I don’t go to movies, I don’t own a television, I don’t buy magazines and I try not to receive mail, so I’m not really aware of popular culture.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“In New York, everybody is their own celebrity, so they’re not so interested in other people.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“It’s very hard to be a playwright because it’s very competitive.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I don’t attribute an actor’s great success to their own individual performance when it’s something as collaborative as a movie.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I have one female fan. But she lives with me. I’m not aware of any others.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I’m no good at really anything that involves motor skills.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I did children’s theater when I was younger, and then when I was about 14 I started doing theater in New York City.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“Nothing is harder than working with an actor who doesn’t take it seriously or show up in the same way that you are.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I always thought Woody Harrelson is quite a persuasive guy. He’s the kind of guy who can call you up in the middle of the night and tell you, ‘Let’s all go get a donut!’ And you’re thinking, ‘It’s the middle of the night,’ but somehow you still get up and go get a donut.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I often think if you have time to sit around the house feeling bad for yourself, you have time to tutor a child. I’m guilty of that exact thing. I will spend more time sitting around feeling bad for myself than actually helping somebody.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“Depression, if it’s an unconsciously elected experience, is a luxury.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I have an iPad and I watch three things: ‘The Daily Show,’ ’60 Minutes,’ and ‘Meet the Press.’”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“Acting forces me to socialise, which is good for me, I think.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“As an actor, you are in a unique position because you’re not only memorizing dialogue but really embodying it. You naturally feel the rhythm of good writing.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“Acting is a weird, kind of alienating job because you’re in an isolated place. Even if you’re working with a lot of other people, you’re kind of alienated. Actors say that a lot, and I kind of find that to be true.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I tend to be pessimistic about everything: If things seem to be going good, I’m worried that it’s going to end; if things are bad, then I’m worried that it’s going to be permanent. It’s not a very comfortable attitude to have all the time.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“The ideal way to approach a character is to find something in yourself that relates in some way.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I feel very guilty doing magic because you’re deceiving somebody.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“In ‘Zombieland,’ it was such a freewheeling plot it almost didn’t matter what the characters were doing scene to scene as long as there was a consistent banter.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“My job when I’m acting in a movie is very limited to playing a role. I’m not evaluating somebody. I’m only evaluating them insofar as they’re interacting with me, but I’m not evaluating their skill set and I don’t watch the movies, so I’m not aware of the way they’re putting things together.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“It’s really hard to copy another actor and be successful. In fact, that’s usually the reason people are not good, because they’re copying something they’ve seen, but, for some reason with their face and their body, it doesn’t work.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“You can tell when you watch a movie, usually, what the actors’ experience was on the movie, because even the smallest of roles were interesting.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“My feeling is… when you show up to a movie set where there’s, like, 50 people standing around and months of preparation gone into it, you want to be as prepared as possible, so you should make a million baguettes. That might not actually help in any explicit way, but it’ll make you feel more prepared.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“It’s a struggle for me to watch things I’ve been in because I’m just distracted and self-critical.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I personally don’t feel the need to be radical for its own sake, but I probably couldn’t if I tried anyway.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I made the mistake of writing something very, very short about Obama for this website that I write fiction for, and my father told me never do that again. And he was right. I have nothing to add to a political conversation because it’s not my area.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“Any time you play a character for a long period of time, regardless of how close it is to you, it infiltrates your life. It’s impossible for it not to.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“Actors dread working with studios because they dictate what you do in a way that independent movies can’t.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“The only way to be turned off to being famous is to be famous.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“The only suggestions I get on my plays is to make them more of what they already are, and that’s wonderful.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I see writing and acting as different parts of the same continuum. Writing is better for intense emotion. If you’re very angry about something, you shouldn’t present it as strongly when you’re acting. But if you’re really angry and writing about it, that’s the best way to get it out and across.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I don’t concern myself with thinking ahead to the finished product. I focus more specifically on what the character is experiencing. Once you relieve yourself of the very arbitrary and always punishing pressure of what an audience is expecting you to do, acting becomes a lot more fun and pure.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I always think the second worst thing in the world is to go on stage at night, and the first worst thing in the world is sitting at home at night. For me, it’s scarier to not be doing it than doing it.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“Who walks around proud of things they’ve done? That’s an obnoxious quality.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I feel equal parts lucky and scared anytime I get a job.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“As for environmentalism, I’m only an environmentalist by accident. I live in New York, so I bike, and the closest grocery store to me sells organic produce. I also shop with a book bag because I ride a bike, and it’s hard to carry the paper or plastic bags.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I think the most important thing for an actor is reading the script and trying to figure out if you can play that character well. The last thing on my mind is if the director made good movies previously. It’s not my job to know if that director’s last movie was any good – it’s my job to know if I can play the role.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I felt self-conscious going out in the street prior to ever even being in a movie. That’s just me.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“The happiest moments for me, creatively, are doing readings of a play around a table where there’s no audience.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I write all the time because I’m lonely. When you’re acting, you’re working every day all day. But then you have long amounts of time off.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
“I write plays instinctively. I don’t like writing movie scripts.”
― Jesse Eisenberg
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